Hank – A good night’s sleep does wonders for you and we both felt much better when we woke this morning. We got our rental car at noon and drove to the Kennedy Space Center. Unfortunately, the thunderstorms and rain visited at the same time. During the bus tour of the launch pads and our visit to the Apollo and Saturn V Center the rain came down in buckets interfering with our views and making photography impossible. Thankfully it stopped when we left the Apollo and Saturn V Center so we had a much clearer view of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). It’s a big honkin’ single-story building with four bays where the space vehicles are assembled before being rolled out to the launch pads.

Back at the Kennedy Center we found we had to watch a video to get in to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis. I remember when we first got into the center, before getting on the bus tour, we had the option to leave through the exit doors during the video so I offered that idea to Kathy. When they dropped the rope and opened the doors Kathy and I headed for the exit doors but we didn’t see any. There were four sets of doors and only one set had a handle so I opened it. There was a second theater with a video playing. We figured we’d at least cut out video viewing time in half so we jumped in. When we did the employee watching this group pointed back at the doors and said, “Hey you’re supposed to stay in there.” Well, it was too late to do anything about us but the door opened again and he was quick to stop whoever else tried to come in.

The next generation launch vehicle, the Space Launch System, looks promising and exciting. Hopefully we’ll see some exciting results from this program. The trip to Mars is part of the program.

I enjoyed all the displays but the loud dramatic music, whether in the videos you have to watch or it being piped throughout the place, really wore me down. We made short work of the remaining displays at the center and skipped the remaining videos. Kids would love this as it is really geared towards them, which is great because I would hope it would generate interest in science.

We wrapped up the evening with a video chat with our kids. It’s always great to see them and we’re looking forward to hanging out with them during Christmas.

Kathy – We both slept well last night and had a relaxing morning in the hotel. We picked up the rental car this morning so we can move a bit faster on the roads. The next four days we will be playing and acting like tourist in Titusville and Orlando. We have lots of time to cycle the last 192 miles to the Fort Lauderdale airport where we fly home on December 19th. So it’s time to relax and enjoy the sites via the rental car. We turn the car back in on Thursday, hop back on the bikes and then start our trek south.

Today we visited Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. It was interesting and we are happy we went. We like to read the many interesting facts as we visit sites and museums, but Kennedy Space Center is geared more for the kids. Lots of exciting music and ten minute videos that you must view in order to move to the open display rooms.

Each area there requires you to watch one video then move to another room and watch a second video, then finally you move into the open area with artifacts and informational readings displayed. In one of the buildings we decided to sneak into the second room without watching the first rooms video. 🤓 Needless to say the gentleman working there was surprised to see us come in and not very happy about it. We are not interesting standing in two different rooms per building for 20 minutes of videos with loud music before we can view the displays. Seems they should let you skip the videos if you like. Regardless, we did find it to be an interesting place and are happy we went. We do not buy all the souvenirs at tourist places, so the highlight was when I talked Hank into dressing up in the spacesuits and getting our picture taken. 🚀 👩‍🚀👨‍🚀🌟